Massoud Hossaini (born 10 December 1981) is an Afghan-born photojournalist. He works for

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (; AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. With 2,400 employees of 100 nationalities, AFP has an editorial presence in 260 c ...

. Hossaini was the winner of the 2012

Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography The Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography is one of the American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for journalism. From 2000 it has used the "breaking news" name but it is considered a continuation of the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photogr ...

and the winner of World Press Photo Contest, along with several other world photography awards, he won William Randolph Hearst Award for Excellence in Professional Journalism (2021), from

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the List of oldest schools in California, oldest public university on the West Coast of ...

's School of Journalism.

Biography

Hossaini was born in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

during the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...

, but his family fled to

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

when he was six months old after his father was arrested for opposing the communist government. After graduating high school in 1996, Hossaini became a political activist with the

Iranian reform movement The Reformists () are a political faction in Iran. Iran's "reform era" is sometimes said to have lasted from 1997 to 2005—the length of President Mohammad Khatami's two terms in office. The Council for Coordinating the Reforms Front is ...

and began recording events with his camera, including Afghanistan refugees' life in

Mashhad Mashhad ( ; ), historically also known as Mashad, Meshhed, or Meshed in English, is the List of Iranian cities by population, second-most-populous city in Iran, located in the relatively remote north-east of the country about from Tehran. ...

. He was stuck in the

American University of Afghanistan attack On 24 August 2016, attackers who are suspected members of the Taliban stormed the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, using a car bomb and automatic weapons. Thirteen people were killed, including seven university stude ...

and wrote an SOS message on Twitter on 24 August 2016. After the

11 September attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

, he returned to Afghanistan to join Aina, a French cultural organization and studied with photographer Manoocher Deghati. He joined AFP in 2007. His work is featured in the American documentary '' Frame by Frame''.

References

External links

Pulitzer citation

World Press Photo bio
1981 births Living people Photojournalists Journalists from Kabul Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography winners Afghan Muslims Afghan photographers {{Afghanistan-journalist-stub